I’ll be fifty in October.
Lately I’ve been saying that a lot, adding it onto statements as explanation, emphasis, authority, or excuse. “I’ll be fifty in October,” I say, “and just can’t scale climbing walls anymore.” Or I say, “This is the strangest running mate choice I’ve ever seen, and I’m turning fifty in October.”
The other day I heard myself say, “My fiftieth birthday is in October, and I still don’t know what I want to be.”
I know fifty is just another year—in base eight I’m remarkably well-preserved, and in base sixteen, I just became legal. But at my base ten age I expect to have more comportment, more calm, more gravitas. I’ve always thought getting older meant striving less and looking back at successes more.
Of course, at fifty, there’s still plenty of time left to publish a book or become a respected artist, but hope doesn’t come as naturally as it does to younger folks. Besides having the world ahead of them, they have a crew of cheerleaders reminding them of their opportunities, their gifts, and their promise. They also have the anxiety of choosing among many doors—no thank you to that part—but their family and peers are, for the most part, hoping for the best and dreaming of a successful future.
In contrast, I have General Douglas MacArthur whispering Corinthians in my ear, “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man I put away childish things.”
Fifty feels like the start of my putting away period. Maybe it’s time to put away that fantasy of talking to Terry Gross about my new book to on Fresh Air. Maybe it’s time to stop comparing my own, way-back-then mile times to those of the athletes I coach. Maybe it’s time to give it a rest and accept that, though I’m not famous or successful on a grand, universal scale, I’ve found a comfortable and mostly satisfying life. Perhaps that’s plenty. Maybe I’ve had success enough. Maybe I need to stop wanting more.
Success is, after all, more a matter of definition than attainment—your own sense of attainment versus society’s quite possibly flawed vision of success. Wouldn’t it be nice if fifty brought me tranquility, appreciation, contentment?
I am tired, but, at nearly fifty, I’m clearly not tired enough. No one should be ready to put me in the retirement home, and I’m not ready either. Yet I wouldn’t mind slowing down, wouldn’t mind a little less fire in my belly…which, now, I have trouble distinguishing from reflux.
Thankfully, I’m healthy and relatively free of the indignities of aging I’ll suffer later. People tell me I don’t look fifty. That’s nice but also sad. Inside, 1980 doesn’t seem that long ago either, and I carry many of the same unfulfilled ambitions of that year. Maybe if I looked older, I might be forgiven for resting. I might forgive myself. Sometimes I think that’s all I desire, all I ought to desire, all I have a right to desire.
As a child, I knew exactly how old I’d be when the century turned, and I was aiming for that moment, sure of where it would find me. Now turning 50 feels like half way. As I venture into more unimagined territory, I’m carrying all the same luggage. I wish I had a better sense of where I’m going.
I might satisfy for knowing where I’ve been.
Filed under: Aging, Ambition, American Life, Angst, Childhood, Confession, Doubt, Eeyore, Essays, Frustration, Human Nature, Identity, Laments, Life, Longing, Memory, Mortality, Musings, Publication, Thoughts, Time, Uncategorized, Work, Writing | 2 Comments »